


Covenant

by GoldenThreads



Category: Excalibur (Comic), X-Force (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/pseuds/GoldenThreads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the start of the Phalanx assault, Tabitha sneaks off for a reunion of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covenant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buckythevampireslayer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckythevampireslayer/gifts).



> This is not-so-secretly a Tabby & Warlock friendship story. He simply hasn't realized it yet.

Douglock.

Tabitha scarcely heard the rest of Excalibur’s situation briefing, let alone paid attention to it. It wasn’t like anyone would ask her help with tactics anyway. It didn’t matter if her heart climbed up into her throat, eyes darting over to Sam to share this pang of hope and loss between them. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t return her gaze. Battle mode. Whatever blip of emotion that name triggered in him, he’d buried it for the moment.

Even with Cable as a teacher, Tabitha never managed such emotional…fortitude. But she didn’t really want to, either.

_Douglock_. Excalibur’s teammate—Excalibur’s secret—for the past few weeks, an _alien_ with _Doug Ramsey’s face_ and no one had bothered to contact any of them about it! There was something bubbling in her chest, not quite anger but desperate to escape just the same, and it was all she could do to duck out of the conference and tear off downstairs to figure out where they’d stashed him.

Her mind raced with thoughts of a day she did her best to forget. Silver ashes on green grass. Silence at the grave of all the world’s languages. Rictor’s hand on her back and far too many tears on her face, her eulogy choked and broken by the gentle breeze, a treasured happiness slipping from her hands for good. All they could do was bury those two lost boys together, pretending it mattered at all, pretending it was poetic or symbolic or whatever fancy shit she was supposed to wrap her devastation into.

At least they were together.

As if.

But if there was a _Douglock_ , maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.

It only took an awkward mumble of hello for the sparkle-eyed elf guarding Douglock’s chamber to step aside and grant Tabitha entrance. No special passwords or anything. The door slid open just as simply, and with a deep breath to give herself strength, Tabitha pushed her way inside.

Whatever she expected of the creature within, this wasn’t it. Douglock sprouted from the wall like some solemn gargoyle, strung up by his own techno-strings that threaded through the entire room. While the other Phalanx had given up on human form entirely, he was a picture-perfect image of that boy she’d admittedly only seen in photos to begin with, but the perfect alignment of his resting features made him seem more mannequin than human. He didn’t give any indication that he’d seen her, no greeting or raise of his head, and for all appearances he didn’t even seem to be turned on.

Just some weird puppet cobbled together from broken dreams and grave dirt, a monster’s marionette.

Tabitha’s heart sank, and she reached out a hand to touch that delicate swoop of hair, stiff as wire.

“Can I be of assistance to you, Tabitha Smith?”

With a choked shriek of surprise, time bomb already forming in her palm, Tabitha stumbled backwards.

Douglock slowly tilted his head. His eyes were still blank, no pupils to complete his human guise, only sheets of dull eggshell blue. She could feel his attention settle firmly upon her, the hair rising on the back of her neck in response, but then it dissipated just as quickly. He ducked his head, line of vision rolling away to the side, as though he regretted frightening her.

“You almost gave me a freaking heart attack,” Tabitha told him, but it wasn’t anger that had her hands shaking. The time bomb fizzled away. “What the heck, dude.”

He didn’t answer.

Doug would’ve apologized; Warlock would’ve asked for the millionth time what the relevance of a _heck_ was.

She tried to stop comparing. It hurt.

“So you’re Douglock, huh?” Tabitha crossed her arms over her chest, trying for unintimidated. She hoped he couldn’t sense how quickly her heart was beating. “And you’re part of those techno-bogeymen outside? No offense.”

“Phalanx,” he corrected. “I am also Phalanx, yes.”

She kept expecting that fixed expression to split down the middle and fall away like a broken mask. How could this creature be anything of either of them without _smiling?_ She gave a low whistle, pretending to inspect him as closely as he’d inspected her. “I’m sure everyone tells you this, but you look exactly like—”

“I am aware of my resemblance to Doug Ramsey. I was constructed with his engrams as my blueprint and bear the majority of his memories.”

There was more to the story, but Tabitha didn’t really care to hear it. “But you’re all Warlocky and stuff,” she continued. It took a lot of effort to resist reaching out and twisting a lock of his hair. She spent too many lazy movie marathons fiddling with Warlock’s droopy tendrils and twirling them into happy springs. Would Douglock’s do the same? Or would it remained fixed and forbidding?

“The Phalanx were engineered from his remains,” Douglock answered simply.

“ _What?_ ” It wasn’t simple at all. “No, no no, that can’t be right. Because like, I took his—I took ‘Lock back with me.” _I held him all the way home._ “I was right there at the funeral, so you can’t tell me someone fiddled around and…”

“Conclusion: You missed some.”

Tabitha turned her back on him, tears welling in her eyes that she didn’t want anyone to know about. That had been her only consolation: the scientists who wanted Warlock didn’t get him in the end. _Only you sure messed that up, huh. Just like everything else._ She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold steady. She’d failed him, and now his pieces were being used to cause so much destruction. Maybe it was even her fault.

And this Douglock spoke so much like him, but nothing like him at all, a voice like a broken record player — echoes of past hits, nostalgic, emotion warped and drained so only an empty thrum remained. _Conclusion_. She had some conclusions all right, and none of them nice.

“…I exist because of him,” Douglock added at length.

Was he trying to comfort her? Tabitha turned to face him once more, expression mostly hidden behind her wide shades. If it had been a trade, she wanted to trade them back; she hated herself for even thinking that. “Least something good came of it, I guess.”

Douglock didn’t appear to have any expression at all, yet still it seemed to soften at her words. “ _Oh_.”

She swore she heard actual surprise trembling through that lone hush of static.

“You wanted me to be _Warlock_ ,” he concluded, astonished. “This is the first occurrence. Everyone always seeks my namesake, not my progenitor.”

“You’ve got  _Lock_ in your name, doncha?” snapped Tabitha, though her voice was teasing and sad. “Why shouldn’t I go looking for your other half?”

Douglock raised his head. “Judging by the reactions of their former companions, I have gathered that the alien was comparatively no great loss.”

_Crack_.

She didn’t even think. Rage alone snapped her hand across his face. The slap struck with incredible force, but did him no damage, and Tabitha’s fingers screamed and ached as if she’d pummeled solid steel. She drew her hand back to her chest and snarled, “He was a great loss to _me_.”

The whole room creaked and shivered, his tendrils shifting, then it all settled to silence. Douglock stared at her, dead eyes unblinking.

“…I regret that I am incapable of returning him to you,” he said slowly.

“No, no, don’t…don’t do that.” Tabitha ran both hands through her hair, fury fizzling like a dud. “It’s not your fault. He was—special, to me. But you’re not him and you can’t apologize for shit that’s not your fault. End of story.”

Douglock didn’t need to open his mouth to speak, but it hung open just a bit before he noticed and closed it once more.

“Geez, we really suck at introductions.” Tabitha shook her head, ashamed of them both. She shouldn’t have stormed down there chasing some ghost in a machine and making things awkward for the both of them. “Wanna start again?”

“We do not require an introduction, Tabitha. I already possess copious knowledge of you.”

“You do?”

“I contain the engrams and memories of Doug Ramsey,” he repeated. A hint of irritation marked his voice. He’d already told her that.

“Yeah, but.” Tabitha bit at her lip, worrying at it as she tried to connect puzzle pieces that just didn’t match. “I never met Doug. Not even once. He was long, long gone by the time I showed.”

Douglock startled. “You never—” When he paused, Tabitha imagined calculations running through his head. “The—the hivemind. I must have. Borrowed something. Data. Name: Tabitha Smith. Codename: Boom Boom. Team: X-Terminators. Personal Information: Aversion to Asgard.”

“That’s even in my profiles now?” she laughed.

Her mirth ran cold at the sight of his deeply puzzled expression, but before Tabitha could ask what he was thinking, someone banged on the door from the outside.

“Boomer, we’ve got a situation topside!”

“Coming!” Tabitha shouted in answer. She glanced back at Douglock hesitantly. He wasn’t what she’d hoped to find, but… “Take care of yourself, yeah?”

A crease appeared on his brow, so faint it might have only been a malfunctioning circuit. “I will strive to maintain optimal functionality.” Then, more quietly, he added, “I suggest you do the same.”

Tabitha flashed him a grin just as the door closed behind her, and Douglock was alone once more.


End file.
